


Patton’s Announcement

by broadjay



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, Neopronouns, Nonbinary Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Morality | Patton Sanders, mogai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27499087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broadjay/pseuds/broadjay
Summary: In which Patton discovers something new about his identity and shares it with the others.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	Patton’s Announcement

Patton stands in the living room fiddling his fingers and swaying from side to side as he anxiously awaits the arrival of the others. He had told them to meet him here after lunch, but he was so nervous about his announcement that he barely had a bite to eat, and just came early. But, it’s been about 45 minutes now, so he expected people to start showing up anytime now-

“Good afternoon, Patton,” Logan says. “The others should be joining us momentarily.” 

“Hey Logan!” Patton replies, perhaps a bit too loud. Logan raises an eyebrow at this, but says nothing. 

So they stand there silently and wait. 

Finally, a soft “ding” sounds as Roman arrives, shortly followed by Virgil. 

“Greetings! We have arrived at your request,” Roman says loudly with a grin. 

Virgil simply nodded their head in Patton’s direction. “‘Sup.” 

Patton gulps. “Hey guys!! Glad we could all make it, looks like we’re all here. I-“

“Where’s Thomas?” Logan interrupts. “Is he not coming?”

“Well, I wanted to talk to you all about this first. Then we can tell Thomas, later.”

“Why later? If you’re announcing something then it would be most efficient to just tell everybody all at once. Why not just bring him now, here I’ll summon him-“

“NO!” Patton cries out, and grabs Logan’s hand, which was raised up, mid-summon. 

Logan looks at him startled and blinks. Patton can feel the eyes of all the sides staring at him. 

“Look I...” Patton starts, stammering. “I just want make sure everything goes well between us first. Then if it goes well with us, it’ll go well with Thomas, because, well, we ARE Thomas,”

Logan lowers his hand. 

“But on the flip side, if it doesn’t go well with you all, then I can still have Thomas left who won’t have to know. It’s...like a safety net.” 

Despite his worries, Patton knew deep down that things would most likely be okay. Just a few months ago, Virgil came out to everyone as agender, and nobody batted an eye. Everyone uses they/them pronouns without question now. 

But...that was agender. Not having a gender is a much easier concept to grasp than what he had to explain. What if they think he’s trying to one-up Virgil? Or that he’s just wanting to be special? What if they just decide that he’s not actually nonbinary at all and ignore his announcement entirely? 

Virgil looks down and nods in understanding at Patton’s worries. 

Logan’s face softens. “Okay, Patton, we understand. The floor is yours, whenever you’re ready.” 

“Well...” He pauses. This is it, no going back now. “I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection lately. Specifically in the...gender way.” 

Virgil perks up slightly when they hear this. Everyone remains quiet and attentive. 

Patton continues, “So I guess what I’m saying is, I’m not as cis as I thought I was?” 

“Are you nonbinary too?” Virgil asks. 

“I...yeah I guess so, kiddo!”

Logan chimes in, “Are you just identifying as nonbinary then, or is there a more specific word you use?” 

Patton takes a deep breath. Here comes the hard part. 

“It took me a while to find the right word. I felt like I was still a guy like you two, but something was different. So I did some research and ran through different terms, trying to find one that fits. 

“I’m not a nonbinary boy, that’s too vague for my liking. Demiboy felt close, but not quite right. Then finally I was in the MOGAI tag on tumblr and found one that is exactly what I was looking for: proxvir.” 

Patton stops and looks around, trying to judge his friends reactions. There appears to be some mild confusion, but nothing hateful it seems. 

“Okay, what does that mean?” Roman asks. 

“Glad you asked!” Patton replies, feeling cautiously more confident. “Basically, it’s a gender thats male-adjacent, or near-male. Another way of describing it is that it’s male, but on another plane of existence.” 

“Okay,” Virgil begins, nodding his head slowly. “So kind of like male, but dissociating?” 

Patton grins. “Yes! That’s an excellent way to describe it.” 

The group nods and lets out various sounds of understanding. 

Patton sighs in relief. Things seem to be going well! 

“So Patton, I think the most pressing thing now is, what pronouns would you like us to use for you?” 

“I haven’t fully decided yet, I’ve actually been looking into neopronouns some, but haven’t found any that fit just yet. For now he/him is fine, and masculine terms like ‘guy’ and ‘sir’ are all still a-okay!” Patton is glad that they had already watched a YouTube video on neopronouns, or gender pronouns other than she/he/they/it, the week before, so he didn’t have to explain that. 

“I found some real softboy-like pronouns I could send your way if you’d like,” Virgil pipes up. 

“Hey that would be great, send them over!” Patton replies with a big grin on his face. Virgil gives a thumbs up and takes out his phone to text Patton. 

Roman clears his throat. “Well Patton, I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we are fully supportive of your new identity, and I am touched that you felt safe enough to come to us with this.” 

Logan and Virgil nod in agreement.

A cheesy expression appears on Patton’s face. “Group hug?” He suggests, and within seconds everyone, even Logan, are wrapping their arms around him. He exhales softly and takes in the moment. 

But that’s all it was, one moment. Seconds after everyone started embracing their beloved nonbinary pal, they all heard a soft “ding.” 

“Hey guys! What’s going on?” It was Thomas.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! This is my first fanfic in a looong time, and I do NOT consider myself a writer, but I had this idea and needed it to be real. 
> 
> If anybody has any questions regarding the terms used here, feel free to ask in the comments!! I’d love to chat with you.
> 
> EDIT: Okay I could’ve sworn they made a ding noise when they rose up but apparently they don’t??? I guess I just subconsciously stole that from The Good Place?? Just,, play along. 
> 
> Also there is a chapter 2 coming soon!


End file.
